Chap. 21.] TEMPLE OF DIAKA AT EPHESUS. 343 



downright madness this, to attempt to seek glory at an outlay 

 ■which can never be of utility to any one ; to say nothing of 

 exhausting the resources of the kingdom, and after all, that 

 the artist may reap the greater share of the praise ! 



CHAP. 20. HANGING GARDENS. A HANGING CITY. 



We read, too, of hanging gardens,®^ and what is even more 

 than this, a hanging city,^- Thebes in Egypt : it being the prac- 

 tice for the kings to lead forth their armies from beneath, 

 while the inhabitants were totally unconscious of it. This, too, 

 is even less surprising than the fact that a river flows through 

 the middle of the city. If, however, all this had really been 

 the case, there is no doubt that Homer would have mentioned 

 it, he who has celebrated the hundred gates of Thebes. 



CHAP. 21. (14.) — THE TEMPLE OF DIANA AT EPHESTTS, 



The most wonderful monument of Grsecian magnificence, 

 and one that merits our genuine admiration, is the Temple of 

 Diana at Ephesus, which took one hundred and twenty years 

 in building, a work in which all Asia^^ joined. A marshy soil 

 was selected for its site, in order that it might not suffer from 

 earthquakes, or the chasms which they produce. On the 

 other hand, again, that the foundations of so vast a pile might 

 not have to rest upon a loose and shifting bed, layers of trodden 

 charcoal were placed beneath, with fleeces" covered with wool 

 upon the top of them. The entire length of the temple is 

 four hundred and twenty-five feet, and the breadth two hun- 

 dred and twenty-five. The columns are one hundred and 

 twenty-seven in number, and sixty feet in height, each of 

 them presented by a difierent king. Thirty-six of these 

 columns are carved, and one of them by the hand of Scopas.^^ 

 Chersiphron®^ was the architect who presided over the work. 



^* Probably of Babylon, whicb were built on terraces raised on arches. 



*' His meaning is, that it was built upon arches. ^^ ^gia Minor. 



8* The Hotel de Ville at Brussels is said to have been built upon a 

 stratum of hides. 



6= See Chapter 4 of the present Book. Sillig, in his "Dictionary of 

 Ancient Artists," suggests a reading which would make the pastage to 

 mean that Scopas was jointly architect with Chersiphron. The latter, how- 

 ever, was not the architect of the second temple at Ephesus, but flouiished 

 nearly four hundred years before. 



66 Strabosays that, in conjunction witb his son Metagenes,be began the 

 frst Temple at Ephesus, Thiersch is of opinion that he lived about the 

 first Olympiad. He is mentioned also in B. vii. c. 38. 



